Rare Trees: The Fascinating Stories of the World’s Most Threatened Species

Filled with more than 300 colour photographs, Rare Trees is a stunning survey of the world’s most threatened trees. Discover the beauty – and importance – of the world’s most threatened tree species. Forests cover nearly a third of the world’s surface, and the trees that make them up include a staggering diversity of more than 60,000 species. Individual trees play specific ecological roles in their unique environments – and they have adapted to thrive on steep mountains, in cloud forests, on dry savannahs, in parched deserts, and in tropical wetlands. Our history, and our future, are interwoven with the trees that define the regions of our green planet. Rare Trees profiles over 60 unique species that are currently endangered – including the most charismatic, fascinating, and downright bizarre examples from all around the globe. Filled with hundreds of colour photographs, maps to help readers identify habitats, and accessible and engaging text by tree experts from the Global Trees Campaign, Rare Trees will give readers a new appreciation for the importance of trees and will inspire them to preserve this critical canopy of life. AUTHORS: Sara Oldfield has been Secretary General of Botanic Gardens Conservation International (BGCI) since May 2005. Previously she worked as Global Programmes Director for Fauna & Flora International. She has worked for a wide range of other conservation organisations, including UNEP World Conservation Monitoring Centre and Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, and as a freelance consultant for over ten years, as a researcher and policy advisor for international biodiversity conservation. Sara is also Chair of the IUCN/SSC Global Tree Specialist Group, responsible for promoting and implementing projects to identify and protect globally red-listed tree species. Malin Rivers is the Head of Conservation Prioritisation at Botanic Gardens Conservation International (BGCI). She manages the red list programme at BGCI, with its current focus on the Global Tree Assessment. Recent tree red list projects include Magnoliaceae, Theaceae, European trees, Madagascar trees. In addition, Malin is the Red List Authority Coordinator and Secretary of the IUCN/SSC Global Tree Specialist Group and the Chair of the Red List Technical Working Group. She has worked with plant conservation in botanic gardens for over ten years. 266 colour photographs, 53 maps